EuroBash 2021 - England Vs Italy

Nicky Gunnery didn't really get the expression 'seeing red' until this exact moment but boy, oh, boy, it resonated so hard right now because the world was frickin' blood right now. Her head was spinning, her chest was pounding, her inclination to make decisions she would very quickly regret was skyrocketing, and she didn't care.

She didn't care. She didn't care. She didn't care.

The whole world was red and she was going to add Adele's blood to its sea.

That red took her into a charge that brought them both ungainly sailing through the ropes, out of the ring, and onto the floor below. Nicky was safely cushioned from the fall by the useless sack of human waste called Adele Monstrosorry, and she wasn't even close to done. She kept hammering, hammering, hammering down on Adele, viciously plowing into her with her remaining gloved fist and and her bare hand, alternating between traditional punching and wild slapping as she dedicated her entire being into reducing genderbent Mussolini into a tomato smear on the floor below. People were shouting, cheering, jeering. Whatever sounds they were making before paled compared to this sudden, unexpected escalation in the fight. Nicky didn't care. The red blocked out the sound and it was just her and her fists and them connecting to Adele's head-

Someone grabbed her arm and the red directed her in the only way it knew how: with an elbow aimed at the offender-

And the referee went down, twirling slightly before her head found the corner of the ring. That, however, did give Nicky pause. The red receded. Reality asserted itself for the briefest of moments, and after a moment of absolutely not knowing what the frick to do, she roughly pushed herself off Adele, stumbling forward to check on the referee.

Giving Adele her back.

Senses, sights, and sounds were beyond her reach. From inside her cocoon, Adele could grasp nothing but the smell of sweat, hot air over her face, and the taste of her saliva mixing with the iron seeping from her cheek. Madness and adrenaline terrorizing every nerve under her skin.

But Nicky denied her at every turn. It wasn’t just punching now. Adele’s boyish features were being littered with audible slaps to the face. Her hair was being caught between the Saxon savage’s fingers. The Italian maiden rolled helplessly underneath her aggressor like a High Renaissance tragedy in motion. She just wanted this crazy woman off of her, but she couldn’t fight back in this whirlwind.

Then it suddenly stopped. Adele breathed deep as Nicky’s weight came off of her. Her eyes shot wide to glance over her gloves to find her opponent turning her back to her. She followed her adversary’s gaze and noticed the referee on the floor. How did that happen? Did Nicky hit her?

Why would she punch the referee? What the fuck was wrong with this girl?!

Why wouldn’t she just stop?!

In much the same brutish manner as her opponent, Adele’s teeth ripped off the velcro of her glove and tossed it off to the side. She quickly stood up, her other hand already working on the restraints of her second glove and peeling it free. The Italian didn't toss this one away, though. She kept it close and clutched tightly in her grip as she hurriedly snuck up behind Nicky and whipped her upside the head with it.

However narrowly, the strike was aimed for the British bruiser’s eardrum. The concussive shock Nicky would feel if it landed would be disorienting. Only long enough for Adele to reach up and grab two full locks of hair from behind before immediately running off to the side of the ring and slamming the blonde’s face into it, over and over again. If there was anything louder than the crowd of thousands two feet away from them, it was Adele’s scream, tearing her throat apart.

Nicky never got a chance to check up on the ref.

Hell, she didn't even get a chance to take a few steps forward before the world suddenly turned upside down. She knew what a punch to the side of her head felt like - and this was very much not that. It was precise in a way that could not be done in the heat of battle, but by the sneaky machinations of an Italian coward. "Oh frick!" she screamed, grabbing at her ear. The world around her -the crowd, the ring, the lights- all suddenly felt so much louder and so much more intense than it already was. She whipped around, knowing exactly who was to blame, but she was too late.

The coward Adele Monstrosorry grabbed her blonde hair, and took them both into a run reminiscent of some kind of dull wrestling gimmick, and slammed her head right into the side of the ring. Again, another very foreign sensation. Punches she could take all day long. High-speed collisions with extremely hard objects? Less experienced, and she wasn't given time to acclimate. She was plowed over and over and over and over into the side of the ring, her nose taking the brunt of the impact each frickin time. It was not a pleasant experience but, in hindsight as she laid in bed reflecting about this match later at night, she was grateful for it.

It revealed to her more and more and more the sad, pathetic italian insect that was Adele Monstrosorry, which meant she had no guilt, no shame, no reservations when, in the micro-second before yet another intimate meeting with the ring, she jerked back her elbow and drove it deep into-

Adele's sorry fanny

The only thing louder than Adele's scream was Nicky's vicious, pained roar as she executed the Italian twat's twat.

Yes, that was it. There was that summer festival in Milan.

It was a haze back then. Adele had fond memories, but in the moment, it was nothing but noise, smells, and vivid colors. The rush of life pouring through her veins was indescribable from that time. She was from a small town on the port where everyone was on a first-name basis. They were barely rich enough to afford a fountain for the park. Festivals were for the privileged and lucky. It was just her own luck that brought her to the north in time for Milan’s annual celebration. But somewhere tucked inside of her heart, there was a yearning for that feeling again.

The pulse of life.

Maybe that was how she ended up where she was now. Adele had to wonder what her father would make of all of this. Her mom would be having a cow, but her dad was never strict about her pretense for roughing things up. As long as she won.

Or lost coolly.

Adele didn’t know whether this counted as either of those things. Frankly, the concepts escaped her. All of them. Winning and losing, eating and breathing, living or dying. Nothing mattered more to the Italian right now than turning Nicky’s blue-blooded features into red paste against the rough edge of the ring. It was this spiteful, arrogant woman’s just desserts. It felt just as good for Nicky to scream her lungs out as she enacted her vengeance in front of the entire world.

The next thing she felt was something both blunt and sharp stabbing her in the groin. Adele released her grip immediately and staggered back, cupping her aching nether with a breathless whimper. Her eyes couldn’t focus on anything except the floor as her vision blurred behind thin moisture. “You...you shithead-!”

With Adele Monstrosorry soothing her cunny like a pathetic little schoolgirl trying to hold in her pee, this would have been the perfect time for Nicky to put her down for good. All she had to do was step forward, grab her by her dumb hair, and fire off into her face until it was but a sad smear of bloodied meat, and drop her on the ground. Those thoughts were very much at the forefront as Nicky side-eyed Adele as she caught her breath, one arm reaching up to the ringside for support, as she dragged herself up to continue this.

But no, she wouldn't do that. Because she was the good guy in this idiotic debacle. She wasn't the one that went out of her way to start this fight, she wasn't the one who spat into her opponent's mouth and violated every tenet of sportsmanship, and she wasn't the one who murdered that nice Japanese girl selling hotdogs in the stand. No, Nicky was better in every conceivable way than Adele Monstrosorry; as a boxer, as a football fan, and as a citizen of earth.

And if that were really true, she would have walked past Adele, brushing against her shoulder, and left this whole fight behind as the better woman. But as with both boxing and life, she was not going to be the one to back down.

Adele would have to suck it up and endure that humiliation.

"Shithead?" Nicky shot back, staring her down. Her voice was weaker, hoarser, and more drained than she wanted it to sound, but she pressed on. "I'm the shitehead? You're the shitehead. Your entire frickin national legacy is built on playing a stooge to Old' Adolf and managing to screw it up every step of the way! You talk with your hands-" Nicky raised both her gloved and ungloved hands, making comically exaggerated gestures with them as her mouth twisted in mockery. "-Because you can't master literacy without disability aids! Your cuisine is shite! Your culture is shite if you're any indication and if you had any -ANY- shame about today, you would march right off right now." Nicky pointed her gloved fist at the entrance podium. "Go on, run. That's how you box, innit? Run, run, run, and hope for the judges to feed you points because 'oh gee, she gots them ring control with footwork'. Well frick you cos that isn't boxing. That's how an Italian chicken be doing its matching dance."

She unlaced her other glove, as if removing it was a threat.

"So you gonna stay and let the world see me beat your arse down? Or are you gonna slink away like a little catholic priest after another child shagging incident?"

The cheap shotting cow.

What a great way to show your national pride, Ms. Gunnery! Adele was feeling pain in every inch of her body, pulsing through her nerves every second in powerful waves. Nicky had battered her around the ring from start to finish. The adrenaline pumping through her started to taper away. Her face slowly retained its natural shape once the nausea passed.

Then came clarity. Through the fading fog of war, she heard every word dripping frothing as venom from Nicky the Nefarious’ tainted lips. Adele felt a shiver, a cold rush along her spine that was only accompanied by an equally fiery pit in her gut.

"Fuck you! What you have against us speaking with our hands, uh?!" Her English was starting to fail her in the face of unceasing, building rage. If they were here tonight, her family would be able to make out the sound of her robust Southern accent from a mile away right now.

"Just because I don’t attack like the brute you are doesn't make me a coward, you fucking…Limey hypocrite! Standing there and pontificate about legacy! Genocide is in your filthy Saxon blood! It’s all you evil colonizers will ever be! You pillage what you want, you hurt whoever you like, and when it all starts to turn on you, you fucking Brexit stage left and want to blame someone else!” She stepped forward into Nicky’s face, throwing her hands into the air as she shouted to high heaven

"You are useless without a master to collar and cudgel you ignorant people. How does it feel walking those cobblestone streets knowing every breath you take is only allowed by your American masters? The only reason Italians didn't conquer your armpit of a country centuries ago is that there was nothing worth having! Roma created all of modern society, while your ancestors lived in caves and ate their own feces! You still eat feces and give birth in fucking toilets! Caesar called your kind the stupidest race to ever exist and holy shit! Now everyone sees why!"

Adele’s finger jabbed at Nicky from only a few steps away. Her other hand clenched into a fist and readied for a lunge. "You're hateful! You're ignorant! Your entire island is full of devils-!"

“Compelling theory.” A bare-handed straight smashed into Adele’s left cheek. The force alone sent her into a spin and crashing against the barricade, coming down to a slump flat on her butt. The tall, lean woman that threw the punch stood at her side, still holding her fist out for a moment as her eyes regarded the Italian. Only when Adele (slowly and painfully) pushed herself back up did Sae shake her fist clean and shoved it back into her pocket. “Go ahead and sleep on it.”

The crowd roared to life at the Chief of Security’s surprise appearance. Sae greeted them with the same regard as she would give to a fly buzzing in her ear, folding her arms as he looked between the two contestants. “Nicky Gunnery. Adele Montessori. Congratulations, you’re both disqualified.”

Sae Yamamoto:

“Che cosa?!" The Italian’s jaw dropped while she kept clutching the barricade. “Ridiculous! It’s this ugly brute who started it! Did you see her tackle me?!”

"What do YOU have against speaking without waving your hands like they're ant feelers!" Nicky slammed right back. Between fatigue, rage, and the smarting pain all over, she wasn't exactly in the headspace about a right and proper debate about why Mother England beat out some failed state surrounding the Vatican... And if she were honest with herself, she wasn't looking for one. Whoever shouted the loudest here was the one that won. She raised her hands on either side of her head, waggling them in exaggerated motions to mimick the Italian hand dance. "Maybe, just maybe, if you guys weren't so busy trying to fly with your mittens. you prats wouldn't have been so godawfully BAD at the whole colonist game! Couldn't even do it yourselves, yeah? Gots Somalia, gots libya, and guess who let you have them outof sheer bloody pity? US and the FRENCH. The charity of the FRENCH, Adele Monstrosorry. THE frickin FRENCH. Only bloody thing you guys gots for yourself was Albania, and that was just Mussolini's little copycat stunt after Ol' Adolf took Austria. Face it, you guys are all liggers! Welfare bloody liggers!"

Some sane part of Nicky's mind hours after this incident happened lamented that this was the current state of their affairs in this boxing match: dick-waving over historical fascism.

But in the moment, winning was the only damn thing that mattered, even if only verbally. That history elective in secondary school was paying compound dividends at the moment. Adele was screaming, she was screaming back. They were trying to shout each other. Her opponent's words registered but she was too busy trying to drown them out with her own.

"Well, Ceasar got himself shanked by his lads, didn't he? Puffed himself up only to be trampled down by Brutus and gang, yeah?" Nicky shook her head mockingly, a smile forced onto her face. "No loyalty when Italy wasn't Italy, and no loyalty now. Gonna claim credit for all the insane tyrants the Romans shat too, are you? You are and will always be a second-rate, famine-threatened, cold-blooded little cagna and nothing you ever do will change that. You are beneath the bloated sow in your family village, you-"

And that was when Adele Monstrosorry struck. Good. She won. She made her blink first. Hands raised, she eagerly surged forward to the next part of this sorry contest.... but that never came. Instead, Adele found herself smacked into a barricade. Nicky was on guard, expecting the same to happen to her, but the tall, tall woman who had delivered the blow never followed up. In Nicky's addled, tired mind, it meant she was in the right. Clearly security had come and determined that this horrid spitting Italian slag was to blame for this whole ordeal and was moving to disqualify her.

"Right, best take her away." Nicky said. She blinked. Wait did she say 'both disqualified'. That couldn't be right. "Beg pardon, what was that last part again?"

Adele had expected to come out tonight at least a little punchdrunk. She’d done her research on Nikki, seen what she was capable of, carrying more power than her little pigtailed ugliness would suggest. It was nothing Adele couldn’t handle, but she had come prepared all the same.

That was until this other woman came out of nowhere and fed her the worst right hook the Italian had eaten in her entire twelve years between the ropes. Though outside of them in this case, the barricade was there to catch her. Adele’s arms slumped over the barricade.

By then, Adele had composed herself just enough to comprehend her privileged British opponent’s slander, happy to use her good name and status to drag Adele’s through the mud. It was pathetic. Every time that she thought it wasn’t possible to hate this woman even more, Nicky found a way to outdo herself. There was no one less deserving of respect in Adele’s mind. Though the Italian could hardly speak beyond: "You are a fucking unbelievable, racist bi-"

"Simmer." Sae repeated firmly. Her arms remained crossed, the impatience practically wrinkling her forehead. The crowd was beginning to rouse all around them as the energy in the arena began to shift. The ones closest to the front yelled for the fight to continue. Just as many held their tongues in anticipation, half-expecting the typically elusive security chief to throw her hat into the fray.

They wouldn’t be so lucky. The only fight she would concern herself with was between this pair of unruly children.

"We aren't going to discuss this here. This isn't a debate, it's an order. Leave the arena immediately and go to the locker rooms to change. Wait there until a member of security staff comes to retrieve you. Don't either one of you think of leaving unless you want your contracts terminated. Now go. I'll be speaking with you both shortly."

Nicky was ready to protest. She was, after all, debate captain back during her younger days in Sandhurst Secondary school. She could reason her way out of this. At the very least, she didn't deserve to be disqualified with the sad hand-talking excuse of a human being that was Adele Monstrosorry. The Italian had spat right into her face, and how could any self-respecting human being take that kind of insult without retaliation? What was she expected to do? Sit around with glob dripping off her face while the ref lumbered over and maybe, just maybe, flashed her a yellow card? Ridiculous. Her retaliation was right and just, especially given how much verbal diarrhea she had take from this evil pasta banshee.

"Now, see here," Nicky began, raising a hand as if she was a student in primary school waiting her turn to speak. "I think this is a major miscarriage of justice. She's clearly the instigator, and I was just defending myself- Beg pardon, did you say contracts terminated?"

Oh no.

That was not how she wanted her career to go down. Short of getting cut from a promotion for sub-par performance, getting her contract terminated was the worst thing she wanted to happen. There went her Visa, she would have to go back home to go to face her family, and, well, she was not ready to do that without some kind of concrete accomplishment to prove this was worth quitting the usual military family vocational route. No, no, that wouldn't do at all. Whatever fight Nicky had in her visibly faded. She dropped her arm and hung her head slightly, disappointed. In herself, in the results of the match, in her situation, in the act of procreation that made Monstrosorry, and in the guidance of fate that dumped the pasta demon in the same place and the same time as her on earth.

"Right." she said. "Just, uh, gimme a minute," Nicky said, slipping away to her corner. From beneath the ring, she pulled out a huge box of, well, the true prize they were contesting tonight. Anzio Pasta. Though she was confident in her victory, she was a woman of her word, and fully intent on lobbing this to the pasta demon as a downpayment of sorts in the unlikely event she triumphed. Which she would not, of course. Now with the match ended and no winner in toll, she could not leave it under the ring to rot or for the cleaning staff to hurl it out. No, this was her responsibility. Besides, she couldn't be defending the box while in the same locker room as the pasta monster.

With no small amount of effort, she picked up the box of pasta, leaned over the barricade, and gently lowered it into the crowd where the audience, knowingly or otherwise, floated it away, mindlessly eager to take anything one of the stars of the ring was offering them. The box slowly floated its way up through the crowds before someone decided that, hey, maybe it was worth checking the contents. Somewhere in the middle seats the box disappeared into a sea of grabbing hands and legs. She swore she could hear cries of confusion.

That was that then.

She jogged back to Sae, bowed her head in one final apology, refused to make eye contact with Adele, and moved to go backstage.